Box 22, Folder 18, Document 11

Box 22, Folder 18, Document 11

; PEAS lye

} EXSCUTIVS REORGANIZATION
GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS '

S



Afternoon Session: December 6, 1966

sor of Sociology and Anthropology

WITNESS: Lee Rainwater, Professo
ity (St. Louis)

Washin.:ton Universi

SUBJECT: Poverty ana Deprivation in the Crisis of the American City

Professor Fainwater told the Subcommittee that until we make really
significant headway in solving the poverty problem (and thereby also
the problems of race and ethnicity) it will prove impossible to plan
urban environments in a rational way, in a way that is useful and
satisfying to urban populations.

He started by describing one particular lower class Negro community
which, with a dozen colleagues, he studied intensively for the past
3 years. This is the Pruitt-Izoe Housing Project in St. Louis.
Built in 1954, the project was the first high-rise public housing
in the city. It consists of 33 eleven story slab shaned tuildings
cestgned to provide housing for about 2,800 families. At present,

it houses about 10,000 Negroes in 2,060 households. What staxked
out as a precedent-breaking project to improve the lives of the
or in St. Louis, a project nailed not only by the local newspapers

but by Architectural Forum, has become an embarrassment to all con-
cerned. In the last few years, the project has at all times had a
vacancy rate of over 20 percent. News of crime and accidents in
the project makes a regular appearance in the newspapers, and the
words Pruitt-Igoe have become a heusehold term for the worst in
ghetto living in lower class Nezro homes, as well as in the larger
community. :





Pruitt-Igoe, in Professor Rainwater's opinion, condenses into one
5f-acre tract all of the problems and difficulties that arise from

race and poverty, and all of the impotence, indifference, and hostility
with which our society has so far dealt with these problems. Processes
that are sometimes beneath the surface in less virulent lower class
sluns are reedily appzrent in Pruitt-Igoe. Because Pruitt-Igoe exists
as one kind of Federal Government response to the problems of poverty,
the failure of that response will perhaps be of particular interest

to the Committee, Professor Rainwater said.

Professor Rainwater brought out the following facts in re
Pruitte-Iz poe:

1. All the whites heave moved out and the population is now all Negro.

nN)
‘
rs


fy2 ty varceing things out of windows, hurting



5. Tenents, therefore, have s jaundiced view of the Public Housing
J ’ J 6

Program. ‘ 4 |
professor Rainwater seid tnat we must start with an understanding
of why lower class iife is this way. He believes the lower classes
act this way because oar two problems:
1. Inability to find work and adequate pay. 2.1

2. Because of lack of finances, they live among other indivicuels
similarly situated, individuals who, the experience of their
daily lives teaches them, are dangerous, difficult, out to
exploit or hurt them in petty or significant ways. And they
learn that in their comnunities they can expect only poor and
inferior service and protection from such institutions as the
police, the courts, the schools, the sanitation department, the
landlords end the merchants. ‘

Professor Rainwater contended that efforts to solve the. general
problems of urban management will forever be frustrated, or at least
much, much more costly without a solution to the problem of poverty,
both urban and rural.

He proposed channeling national income (particularly the yearly
increment in national incone ie families in the lower thirty to
can) ,

forty percent of the population so that a femily income floor is
established which is not too far below the median inceme for
American families es a whole.

Professor Rainwater thinks that there are basically two strategies
implicit in the various programs and suggested plans for doing
something about poverty. One, by far the most entrenched eat present,
might be called the services stratezy, and the other the income
stratesy.



In his opinion, the problem with the services apprcach is that to

a considerable extent it carries the latent assumption either that
the poor are permanently poor and therefore must have special
services, or that the poor can be changed(by learning productive
skills, by learning how to use their money more wisely, by developing
better attitudes, ete.) while they are still poor and that once

they have changed they will then be able to accomplish in ways that
will do aveay with their poverty.

a
A second problem, h
priority of needs o
service programs a1

An

It
of

i
provides @ service to each
a subsidized apsrounent that cost
a fifth of the mean family incom

“=

approach is

ry 0D
Si
m0
fu
h
:
a
ny
ct
iD
a
a]
by

oO
a
i)

example he described the Federal pwolic housing program
E pros

rultt-Igoe in the form of

ants in the project.
is very likely that frem the point of view of the needs of many
the families who live in Pruitt-Igoe that $55 could be put to

much better use.

The Professor said that those economists who have pursued this line
f thinking in studying the problem of poverty have suggested that
the income strategy requires three elements:

A.



a

An aggresational approuch--wh



ich involves general economic
planning directed at the maintene
a real unemployment rate (that is, taking into account labor force
drop outs) that is extremely low. Such an employment rate has
charecterized this country only during the height of World War II.

i
545 a year. This amounts to
ena

ance of tight full employment with

a

A structural epproach--which compensa php the tendency for unenploy-



ment ancns low sxilled workers 40 relatively high
levels even uncer conditions of then full employment. Such an
approach would reguire that Federal programs to bring adout full
employment be tied to guarantees of lator force entry jobs for
unskilled men, and guarantees of training cn the job to upgrade
those skills. In this context, thst is tic nt, full employment

at all skill levels, a high minimum wege would also be necessary
and would not have the negative effect of hastening the replacene
of men by machings.

An incone maintenance progrem--which fills in the income gap not
touched by the tight full employrent programs. The income main-
tenance program would be required for families with dissbled or
no male head and where the wife should not work because of the
ages or number of the children. ee a program could take the
forma of sem ry So owenees a nesavive Income Tax, Or &n sunpes







4

: the San ts eurrent income maintenance
prosrams Teastic wer Mand other types of public are
since these are by f he most sticnstizing poverty programs











o the Subcommittees. tr e ectivit jes and ecc
aod ]

f.
mb
t—

oPpPedhp
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led oy a

e



required to

Mr. Kotler made the following recommendations:

l. The Federal Government can assist the formation of neighborhood
corporations by funding their administrative costs and program
operations.

2. The independent neisi bozhood corporations of a city snould become
delesate agencies of the existing Community Action Organization.

3. The neighbornood corporations would use the Federal funds to sub-
contract to private industry to rebuild the city. ,

h. An alternative is for the neighborhood corporation to become a
delezate agency of the local housing authority.

WITNESS: William A. Doebele, dr., Professor of City and Regiona

Planning, Associa

Professor Doesbele

1. That it request the Secretary of the
_ Urban Development to initiate at the e

rte Dean for Development, The Graduate
School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge,

Meassachus

made the following recommendations:

ue

pe]

S ss
®

a Ss
bate
ot fe
i
0
oO oe
ols
o oa
@
Hi
es
co!
fo
a
et

at

a S

in cooperation with appropriate Srareeei

ai
LG
rene tot ceaies tne and

universities,

a comprehensive study of manpower resources in the

field of urban affairs, relating the. same to the needs of both
the public and private sectors, and the requirements not only
of existing programs, but those contemplated or likely within

the next decade.

2. That the
graduate study in
provided for in
this year, be imne
per year,

appropr

current $500,000 appropriation for
community planning end allied fields
the

diatea

fellowships for
first

Housitig Act of 195k, but not funded until,
ly increased to ae ae east
and oe to cover urban stu

t $10 million

ies in many fields

rOMLOGL:?
f aicathns? tate de

and at many levels of training.
3. Theat since the most critical shortase of personnel is at the
Op policy positions, a special fund of $5 million per year for
years & lated e of
5S, 0





il
15 schools of
drew Wilson
S, and the



Heneoi s b Prineete
new Kez neds Tnstd tut



i

i)

ct
it

ry

:
He
we
wo
my

kh, That an eguive ewes a for the purpose of doing
research and estat zreus relating to the training
of inhabitants of parcicips ate effectively in the actual

rebuilding of their owa environuent.









be m iniedle available

iu bj for cist ri buses ----os-
izations Tor studies to
erstanding of the

ee ee

5. That
to-sn-appron
tion to univers
increase as rap
nature of urbteni

SE eS cr a na



4
4.
we

i ar

dly as = oRBIble our b

zation and urban eres

6. That a separate sum of not less than $250 million per year be established
under the administration of one or several Federal Departments for the
cone tees of larva-seale exverimental uroan environments, to test

and eveluste, « methods of the social end natural sciences,
or













the effects AE a wide ranse of Bess bilities which are now technolosically
feasible but cannot te built be s2 Of financial, lezal or other
constraints.



In reply to a question by Senator Kennedy, the Professor said that he would
put a priority on his first recommendation, the second suggestion next,

and then number five es third priority. Senator Kennedy wes very impressed
with the professor's recommendations to get more information about urban
environments, since this is one of the reasons the problems have not beer:
solved at this time.




Main questions raised by Senators Ribicoff and Kennedy (the only members
present):

1. Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis.

Senator Ribicoff asked Professor Rainwater whether there were any
advantages at all to living in Pruitt-Igoe, and the Professor replied
that the tenants were pleased with the interiors of the apartments,
but that the world that has grown up around the piedes and within
its boundaries is what gives the project its bad nam

Ribicoff was interested in whether this project sheds any light on

public housing in general. The Professor said that it shows that

public housing should be built at scattered sites and in small settle
: ments.

2. Use of public housing money.




so discussed. That
similar to the old
o pointed out that Dennerk
o to provide Low-income
sO rent up to 20 percent
of his building to Low-inceme families (rent suvsidies). Professor
Rainwater told Senator Ribdicoff that he definitely would substitute
something else fer the present public housing program although
the program worss better in some places then in others.

A propose] meade

proposal would 2

Homestead Act. Sroreseor 2

uses cooperatives and nonpro
ine

housing ty zZivi the cwaer a subsidy

ca

Cooperation between HUD and other agencies in Pruitt-Igoe,.



ae

Professor Rainwater told the Subcommittee that there have been

many efforts to coordinate activities in this project by HUD

and the Labor Department, but they have never really gotten off .
the ground. He said there is not @ tremendous amount of coordination.
In 1961, e Concerted Programs Services was begun, but was not very

suécessful.

Role of the Universities.



Professor Rainwater,in reply to Senator Ribicoffr, said that he

aid not think that a University could use the money that is being
spent on Pruitt-Iso0e and do a better job than the Government is doing
now. He said that his group are not practicners. He thinks the

real prodliem in public hcusing is political. Whether the country

is willing to do a better job. He thinks the role of the university
is to develop prozrams for the young people and to try and understand
the comunity.

Higher incomes - key to the protlen.



In Professor FRainvater's Opinion, the real key to urtan slums is to
provide people with an adeguete income. He thinks this has
priority over housing and everything else. The solution to the
problem of inscequz te income would simplify all the other problems.